Over the weekend news spread quickly that Gentleman Gene Colan is suffering from liver failure. Gene’s wife Adrienne sentr out a letter, reproduced here:

My darling, sweet, handsome and brilliantly gifted husband’s liver is failing. The complications are very nasty. This week it’s fluid retention and encephalitis. He’s on powerful meds now to diminish the symptoms. He sleeps a lot and has very little energy. He wants you all to know how badly he wanted to attend the convention. He so seriously wanted to see you all and shoot the breeze.

Not sure how long we have left together, but our family whole and we’ll be taking this sad journey together and nearby.

Clifford Meth has begun organizing a benefit to help with the medical bills. . Neal Adams, Norm Breyfogle, Adam-Troy Castro, Peter David, Tom DeFalco, Pat DiNizio, Harlan Ellison, Mark Evanier, Neil Gaiman, Joe Kubert, Jim Lee, Stan Lee, Leah Moore, Tom Palmer, Mike Pascale, Dave Simmons, Marv Wolfman and Ash Wood have all signed up.

Colan remains one of the greatest Marvel artists of all times. His 70 issue stint on Tomb of Dracula with Marv Wolfman remains a highlight, but his work on Howard the Duck, Dr. Strange and Daredevil are also notable. Colan is one of the few artists whose work always elevated his material, not with dynamics but characterization. His people are always completely realized characters; while Colan would never be called a humor artist, his mastery of expressions definitely helped Howard the Duck, in particular, become a benchmark.

There’s an address to send cards in the top link. Please don’t be shy with your gratitude, admiration and generosity.

Photos from his recent opening at the Clementine Gallery. In the foreground to awesome new art book from PictureBox.

§ Carol Kino profiles Lynda Barry in the New York Times:

BY celebrity standards the cartoonist Lynda Barry leads a reclusive existence. When she first developed a cult following in the 1980s, she cut a highly public figure, with frequent appearances on “Late Night With David Letterman” and the like. But after the market for her work began shrinking in the late 1990s, she gradually withdrew, refusing to talk on the phone with reporters or her editors. Today she draws her 30-year-old weekly strip, “Ernie Pook’s Comeek,” on a dairy farm just outside Footville, Wis., where she lives with her husband, Kevin Kawula, a prairie restoration expert. Since moving there six years ago, the couple have been relatively self-reliant, growing much of their own food and chopping their own wood for fuel.

Check out the multi-media slideshow, narrated by Barry.

§ PLUS : Alice C. Chen interviews Gene Yang in SFGate

Since “ABC’s” rise, the 34-year-old has lived at a frenzied pace. In late April, he released a short story, “The Motherless One,” the only graphic tale in “Up All Night,” an anthology of teenage literature. He travels to destinations such as New York and France, speaking at comic book conventions and teen book clubs. Yang also works full-time as a computer science teacher and director of information services at Bishop O’Dowd, a Catholic high school in Oakland. (He keeps his job because he enjoys education and says it would be too isolating to just cartoon.) He’s married to Theresa, a former teacher, and they’re parents of a 1-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. Every night after the children go to bed, Yang heads to his home office to sketch thumbnails and write for hours.

Indie Jones blogs about the School of Visual Arts annual mini comics faire, which we usually go to, but had to miss this year. It’s a shame, because every class includes at least one future star and several future mainstays:

Most interesting thing to note: I’d say about 90% if not more of the kids there draw in a manga-inspired style. I know, I know…shocker, right? But it was very interesting to see what the next generation of OEL kids did when faced with predetermined subject matter from the faculty rather than just spinning off into their own fantasy lands. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Laurel Maury wrote to us with this note the other day:

SVA’s entering class this fall had more women than men for the comics/illustration major. 32 to 30.

That’s just crazy talk.

David Lapham (STRAY BULLETS, YOUNG LIARS) joins the ranks of the bloggerati:

One of the main reasons I decided to start a blog was to refute some of the rumors swirling around certain circles about myself and what happened before. By that I mean before I was a cartoonist, before I was married, before I had two beautiful daughters. Before all that I lived a life of dreams and nightmares. I traveled all over during my competitive playing days and once saw a man disemboweled in an alley in Vienna. I saw my best friend have his head split open, climbed to the summit of Mt. McForester, and lied to save myself from frostbite. I have on numerous occasions worn disguises for personal gain. I ran for my life so fast my flesh was ripped from my body. I met a hobo, mugged a mugger, and held a gun in my hand with the power to do the most monstrous things. I have learned from all this that the truth will not set you free. The truth will usually get you slapped, punched, chased, beaten, kicked, stabbed, and or murdered or hobbled, and I choose not to practice it whenever possible. The next “Early Life” post will be a proper beginning as I tell you about something horrible that happened when I was six that changed my life forever and just might change yours.

Jim Woodring and Paul Di Fillipo team for an illustrated novelette:

COSMOCOPIA, a brand-new novelette by award-winning science fiction and horror author Di Fillipo is about to be published by Payseur and Schmidt in an innovative deluxe edition that will have you cabin-bound with suspense. That’s a promise! And as the French say, “‘Allo; I have a hand in it.”

We are like, so utterly super swamped today that we can only leave you with the golden oldie from Pilipino Komiks, early cover art from Coching, the Jack Kirby of the Phillipines.

The big news coming out of Stumpown this weekend is that Larry Marder’s resurgent Beanworld comics will be published by Dark Horse:

Steve Duin of the Oregonian did a nice write up of today’s panel–including the announcement above and includes the following summary:”Dark Horse plans to republish the first 21 issues of Tales of the Beanworld, possibly in deluxe hardcover editions, then deliver Marder’s new adventures sometime in early 2009. Diana Schutz will edit.”

I’m really very excited to be affiliated with Dark Horse. I’ve admired Mike Richardson and his crew from across the playing field for two decades and have always had the greatest admiration for the entire Dark Horse team.

Today I gave the first solo Beanworld panel presentation in over 15 years. It covered a lot of ground, and I’m almost certainly going to be giving it again at SD08. Also revealed was the name of the up-coming NEW graphic novel: “Remember HERE when you are THERE.”

More: Steve Duin in the Oregonian and an interview with Marder at CBR.

§ Hope Larson has a new website up for her more adult art: Personal Ho. (left)

§ We totally forgot that the Pittsburgh Comicon was held this weekend, but it is now apparently dubbed “Murder con.” Someone wrote about it to the Comics Reporter and from the sound of it, it was pretty desolate.

§ Laura Hudson suggests that the comics industry’s press relations in general could use a review:

Before I really get into this, it’s important to keep in mind here that approaching a publisher as a member of the press who wants to give them coverage or reviews is very different from poking around for stories and quotes that don’t necessarily point towards a positive angle on their product. Unsurprisingly, the latter is going to get fewer welcoming responses.

To a certain degree, that’s just how it works, and I don’t see anything particularly insidious in it. I would add, though, that because the comics press is less established (or respected) than press is in certain other fields, I think a lot of people in the industry are not as accustomed to the poking and prodding Tom describes, and consequently can get touchier in the course of journalistic inquiries. But really, I don’t see this as the primary problem. While it may not be optimal, I’m not surprised by this unresponsiveness to certain lines of inquiry.

What I don’t understand–what really blows my mind is that some companies can be just as unresponsive and unhelpful to people who want to give their books positive coverage, review them, or generally make them more visible. That’s what really resonated with me about Tom’s post, because I’ve seen it happen more than a few times and it never ceases to amaze me with its pointlessness.

§ Mark Evanier went to the LA Times Book fest.

§ Shaenon on The Boys of Shojo Manga :

The Tortured Genius
The heroine’s parents approve of this one. He’s a high-IQ achiever on the fast track to Tokyo University, and is often a Wealthy Playboy to boot. But his heart is as tiny as his brain is huge. An arrogant smartass, he delights in making the heroine feel stupid and insignificant. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to date her, of course; his strategy is to belittle, manipulate, and intellectually bulldoze her into falling in love with him. And it works, especially once the heroine realizes that he’s hurting inside and Just Needs Someone To Love Him. Extremely common in the works of Miki Aihara.
Signature Romantic Gestures: Intellectually abusing the heroine; emotionally abusing the heroine; physically abusing the heroine; helping her study.
In Real Life He’d Be: Exactly the same, but in his forties.

§ Catch-up 1: Indie Jones blogs the ICv2 conference.

§ Catch-up 2: Jeff Trexler on “How Siegel and Shuster created our world”:

This tension between past and present is equally evident in the Siegel case. On the one hand, for many within the comics community the ruling was a symbolic victory in the struggle for creators rights, vindicating not just Siegel and Shuster, but legions of comic book artists and writers whose genius was exploited by corporate greed.

Yet much to the surprise of longtime industry watchers, the judgment also provoked a strong negative response. Some critics focused on the fact that the winner was not Siegel himself but his heirs, who were said to have gained an unearned windfall. Other observers went a step further, questioning the wisdom of a law that voids otherwise valid contracts, and accusing the Siegels themselves of exploiting Superman for their own financial gain.

§ Jim Steranko copies himself

§ When we saw the headline “Comic Genius” in our RSS feed, we wondered “Who could it be this time???”

Surprise! It’s artist John Cassaday:

These days, Cassaday finds himself in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose which assignments he takes. “I’ve got specific goals in mind and don’t want to deviate just for a few bucks if I’m not interested,” he says. “The story must come first.” Though he won’t reveal what he makes, his page rate—the amount an artist charges per page drawn—is among the highest in the business. Given that an elite illustrator can command up to $1,000 a page for a 22-page comic book and that most popular titles are monthlies, a top talent like Cassaday can comfortably clear six figures annually. And that’s not counting potential back-end royalties for merchandise, trade paperbacks, and spin-offs, which are negotiated separately.

Some of your out there may remember Nina Paley, an indie cartooner who went on to create the syndicated Fluff, but has lately been pretty much absent from comics pages. That’s because she’s become an animator and her SITA SINGS THE BLUES is playing at this week’s Tribeca Film Festival. Friday’s premiere is already sold out, but tickets are still available for subsequent showings. The film has garnered praise from NPR and the like for its whimsical retelling of the Ramayana interspersed with a contemporary story of a woman following her husband to India, all told with animated shadow puppets, Busby Berkeley-style Bollywood musical numbers and other multimedia effects. Paley animated the whole thing herself. The trailer is above, but here are some stills.

The Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship was founded to remember the last King Features editor. Coloumbia born RISD student Juana Medina is the first winner, E&P reports:

A sophomore at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) has won the first annual Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship from the National Cartoonists Society Foundation (NCSF).

Juana Medina edged out almost 200 applicants for the award, which includes a $5,000 scholarship and a trip to the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award convention in New Orleans. She’ll receive her award at the Reuben banquet on May 24.

No real time for links today but today’s comics loving New York Times has a big story about what we’ve been telling you for years: COMICS ARE WHERE IT’S AT!

Twenty-five years ago, a lot of creative downtown types looking for alternative credentials and low overhead costs became performance artists, setting up shop in cheap lofts in all-but-deserted neighborhoods (making a performance of one’s own sleep deprivation — also low-cost).

The 2008 version of that same crowd seems to be leaning toward an art that runs even less costly than any kind of theater, relying on only paper and a pen. When she’s not pulling espresso shots behind the counter of some Carroll Gardens cafe, that 24-year-old barista with the tasteful nose pierce is probably holed up at home working on her latest graphic novel, an art form that’s currently exploding, any enthusiast will tell you, and nowhere more than in New York.

The next paragraph quotes some foolish blogger, but at least we can tell our mother we finally got our name in the New York Times! Our job is done!

Cartoonist and art teacher Phoebe Gloeckner has won a Guggenheim Fwllowship. The Fllowships are prosented to advanced professionals in a variety of creative and scientific fields to enable them to work on projects with creative freedom. Gloeckner will use hers to work on a graphic novel..

Gloeckner will use her fellowship to create a graphic narrative about a Mexican girl murdered at the turn of this century in Ciudad Juarez, a major U.S.-Mexico border crossing adjacent to El Paso, Texas. The project represents a radical change in her work, she says. Rather than draw images, Gloeckner developed a three-dimensional technique, teaching herself to use tools and to construct nearly everything she would normally draw.

“The fellowship will allow me to immerse myself in the final stages of this process, which will require several more trips to Juarez and long periods of focused work,” she says. “I’m so very happy and grateful to have received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and acknowledge that it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of family, friends and colleagues.”

Congrats, Phoebe!

Actress Chloe Sevigny models the Tezuka-inspired t-shirts from Japanese retailers Uniqlo..

This latest T-shirts have been designed in collaboration with iconic Australian artist Keith Harring, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as well as a line devoted to the 50th anniversary of Manga magazines (the coolest Japanese comics) as seen on Chloe here in the campaign shots which you will be seeing, everywhere, from now!

Would Tezuka have approved of the “I am so stoned I cannot spell ‘I’” look that Sevigny displays here? Or would he have been inspired by the “I can make finger shadows!” hand gestures? Does this have anything to do with BLACK JACK?

i09 reports on an aborted Tezuka project:

When Osamu Tezuka, the father of manga, died in 1989, nobody had a full archive of his works—at least not in English. But his genius was certainly recognized. Back in 1965, Stanley Kubrick even asked him to art direct 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Tezuka, a known workaholic, turned down the opportunity because he couldn’t leave his studio for too long.) What was so important that he couldn’t leave his studio for Kubrick?

This:

It’s one of the erroneous assumptions of comics that Steve Ditko is a crazy old coot who doesn’t draw comics anymore. While it is true he doesn’t draw SPIDER-MAN comics any more, aparently he toils away in his studios still working on new projects, and even the odd freelance job here and there. He is even in contact with contemporary cartoonists. And what do you know, there is indeed a new book by Steve Ditko out:

Steve Ditko’s first new book in 8 years is available now (if you discount the 2002 “Avenging World” compilation that was filled with old articles and artwork)! It is 48 pages and costs $4.95. We’ll be housing all the details here.

Ordering Information
This week’s April issue of the small-press fanzine, The Comics (put out monthly by Robin Snyder, Ditko’s co-publisher when he put out his last original book, Steve Ditko’s 176-Page Heroes Package in 2000, and the above-mentioned 2002 compilation) has the following details…

Now Available for $4.95 + 1.55 P&H in US. S&H, 4.05 in Europe

to: Robin Snyder 3745 Canterbury Lane #81, Bellingham, WA 98225-1186

Blake Bell conjectures the contents may be an updated version of essays that originally appeared in The Comics that labeled him and Gary Groth as Anti-Ditko “based on the title and cover image of our book on his career, (then-titled) Steve Ditko: The Mysterious Traveler (now retitled Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko).”

Those wishing for a copy should contact Snyder directly.

While perusing the Disney forum for the previous item, we came across an update on Don Rosa’s detached retina relayed from Dan Shane on the Disney Comics Mailing List on 3/26:

Don has communicated to me that on Tuesday he had a follow-up visit to the eye doctor to check the progress of his recent surgery. It was discovered that his “good” eye was developing some tears that foretold the same retinal detachment he experienced in his left eye, so he again had an immediate operation - this time laser surgery to mend the tears. His doctor feared that the retina in his right eye might also detach before his left eye had healed, rendering him blind in both eyes for months.

Don’s vision has been suffering for many years, and the level of detail he puts into his long stories most certainly contributed to it. I have watched him hovering closely over his work and was often reminded of the character played by Donald Pleasence in THE GREAT ESCAPE. He portrayed an excellent forger who also lost his vision when the constant hours of highly detailed paperwork aggravated his myopia to the point of blindness.

Fortunately Don’s condition has not reached that point, but it would be unrealistic to think that his vision will actually improve. The best we can all hope for is that his situation does not worsen. It is more likely that his vision problems can only be slowed. He has known (obviously) that his eyes are not what they used to be, and it probably helps explain the reduction in his output in recent years.

We send our best wishes to Don for a speedy recovery.

CBR takes a look at comics on MySpace and concludes that Marvel is very buzy there. However the most popular cartoonist on MySpace is a Seattle-based animator named Siya who has over 47K “adds”:

In keeping with cries of joy, top-ranked indie comics artist Siya told CBR News she first set up shop on MySpace to share her artwork with folks who may not necessarily find themselves in comic book shops. “A few years ago, MySpace wasn’t really known for networking amongst comic creators,” she said. “I just put up my artwork in hopes that people who wouldn’t usually read comics would be interested, in both comics and art. Some people liked what they saw and I just starting getting a lot of friend requests.

It may not hurt that Siya is a MySpace-friendly young lady of great attractiveness, but she is seemingly aware of the pitfalls of this tack:

DO NOT add me, if:

1. To add to your “hot chicks” list - I’m not a model, and I highly doubt I rank on the hot list. (its much appreciated, but doesn’t say much about me) I’m a big dork, you’d be very disappointed if you expected otherwise.

Brooklyn’s indie cartooner Robin Enrico is profiled in the Ny Daily News:

With thoughtful and believable dialogue, eye-popping visual elements, simple character designs, and influences ranging from graffiti art to candy packaging, his comics are some of the most stunning artwork available in the mini-comics industry. Although his work is not really autobiographical, Enrico draws from real-life experiences in his comics, which range from his video game addiction in “Controller,” to relationship drama in “Stupid and Unkind” and “Jam in the Band.”

Enrico writes “it’s part of an interview series they have been doing with indie cartoonist. Last week focused on Monica Gallagher and next week should be an interview with MK Reed.”
Please note, this is not a dream, nor a hoax, not an imaginary story. We have reached the point in the cultural assimilation of comics that you don’t have to be Frank Miller or Jim Lee to get interviewed in one of the most famous daily newspapers in the world. You can be a hard working, talented indie creator whose biggest public exposure previously was probably sitting behind a table at MoCCA.

Congrats to Robin on the great coverage. We’re living in a world even The Beat could never have imagined.

(more…)

Several sources are reporting that cartoonist Don Rosa is recovering from surgery. Mike Gold at ComicMix writes:

It probably goes without saying that an artist’s most significant tools are his eyes. People have figured out alternate ways of drawing, but they’ve got to see what they’re doing. So it is with great trepidation that we note legendary Disney Duck artist Don Rosa, a regular at many a convention and fan event, underwent emergency surgery last week to cure a detached retina.

It will not be known if the procedure was successful for several more weeks, but Don is resting at home (in a prone position) and will have to undergo six months of recovery downtime. He hopes to return to the convention scene this fall.

A reader writes to inform us that Jill Thompson now has her own forum on the Lurid Forum. That in turn reminded us that she has a blog which we don’t check nearly often enough. Thompson is yet another cartoonist who has been locked away working on a loooooong series of graphic novels for quite a while, in this case Magic Trixie:

I finally finished Magic Trixie #2. Break out the champage and chocolate! After months of life throwing horrible obstacles in my path…I packed up the final spot illos yesterday and sent them off to Harper Collins! Yay! So. One hundred and eighty six pages of painted art in the can ( minus covers and title page art and spot illos) and only one hundred and eighty six left to go. And, while I am very pleased with Miss Magic Trixie and her monstery pals. I can honestly say, I wouldn’t mind a plain old pen and ink vacation! It will be lovely to go to a convention in Spain next week and do some pencil drawings. I do not know why I didn’t think that drawing and painting 372 pages would not be a bit daunting…it seemed like a breeze at the time. But, I will be very proud of myself once I’ve finished all my books. Really, I think it’s at about the 53 page mark that your brain goes…”Isn’t this enough? Whaddaya mean I have another 40 pages to go? You must be insane!”

Taking a look at the art, it can only be judged the best kind of insanity.

Dear friends, The Beat has been blogging for nigh on four years now, and when we began, our goal was to put comics culture into the context of real world culture, and make cartoonists feel good about themselves by treating the medium as a place of ideas and influence, not the island of misfit toys. Now it appears that this movement may have gone too far. Just as the literary acceptance of comics began with the infamous New York Times mag cover story, the Times may have officially made this THE DAY COMICS JUMPED THE SHARK.

The evidence? A FASHION spread (above) on Indie cartoonists taken at Splat:

A PARADE of awkward TV and movie antiheros — think Ugly Betty, Velma from “Scooby-Doo,” McLovin from “Superbad” — has given nerdism a boost in cachet. Now come their off-screen counterparts, the crowd at Splat!, the graphic novel symposium that took place on Saturday at the New York Center for Independent Publishing in Midtown. The cartoonists, publishers, librarians and manga fanciers in the crowd elevated the overtly scholarly Poindexter look to a retro art form.

Skipping the requisite gadgetry (Bluetooth headsets and the like), most cultivated an aura of benign self-neglect. Overstuffed messenger bags, weathered cords, Converse sneakers and trilbys contributed to the effect. Tousled hair, windbreakers and spectacles, too, played a part in transforming these studiously nondescript characters into brashly confident avatars of cool.

The Baltimore City Paper reviews Scrooged a show of Carl Barks art at the Geppi Entertainment museum. And you will cry:

And “Yukon” is not an example of Barks’ best work, coming as it does from very late in his career, when his art had atrophied into generic Disneyness, unlike his more idiosyncratic, Hal Foster-influenced art from the 1940s and early ’50s. Nor does it contain the satire or hard knocks of his Donald Duck stories from the ’40s-’50s, which were more stories done with kids in mind rather than kids’ stories.

Not that Scrooged’s curators, Arnold T. Blumberg and Andrew Hershberger, had any choice. Nearly all of Barks’ original artwork is gone, tossed in the trash by his publishers–in fact, “Yukon” is the only full story known to exist, the curators say.

The rest of the exhibit is filled out by a number of the oil paintings Barks made in his later years and some other miscellanea: statues, toys, and the like. Unfortunately, those paintings are mostly awful. While they feature good compositions, and some of the later ones do some nice things with lighting and backgrounds, it’s clear that Barks was a cartoonist, not a painter. He could effortlessly express movement and emotion with a few lines, but those same ducks become lifeless dolls–kitsch, and bad kitsch at that–when delineated in another medium.

Via YouTube Craig is profiled by the local paper . . . and we get a sneak peek at his adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN: THE DREAM HUNTERS. This is a preview scene from “Lurid Chief” Wayne Alan Harold’s upcoming DVD profile of Craig, titled SOUND INTO IMAGE: THE ART OF P. CRAIG RUSSELL.

ESSEX COUNTY’s Jeff Lemire (interviewed this week in PW Comics Week by Laurel Maury) has a new mini comic up at his blog:THE HORSELESS RIDER.: